social movies

An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

The slave Spartacus survives brutal training as a gladiator and leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic, as the ambitious Crassus seeks to gain power by crushing the uprising.

In Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.

In 1793, as the Terror begins in France, Georges Danton, a champion-of-the-people, returns to clash against Maximilien Robespierre and his extremist party.

In this allegorical story, a revolution led by pupil Mick Travis takes place at an old established private school in England.

A low-life bandit and an I.R.A. explosives expert rebel against the government and become heroes of the Mexican Revolution.

A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.

Illegal refugees lead dark lives in pre-World War II Paris.

In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.

A band of Mexican gunrunners employed by a revolutionary General accept an American mercenary into their gang, unaware of his true intentions.

During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.

A World War I veteran and aspiring engineer tries to re-enter civilian life. After being unwillingly caught up in a robbery, he suffers the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, struggling to clear his name and prove his worth.

Biographical epic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster, to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his eventual assassination.

In 1920s Boston, Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are scrutinized for their anarchist beliefs while on trial for robbery and murder.

A politically ambitious district attorney, unscrupulous tabloid journalists, and regional prejudice combine to charge a teacher with the murder of his student.

When a wrongly-accused prisoner barely survives a lynch-mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.

In 1940s Chicago, a young black man takes a job as a chauffeur to a white family, which takes a turn for the worse when he accidentally kills the teenage daughter of the couple and then tries to cover it up.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

An unconventional retelling of the life of William Walker, a 19th century American mercenary leader who became the president of Nicaragua.

Puritan statesman Oliver Cromwell leads England in a civil war against the absolutist and Catholic-sympathetic King Charles I.

A news-reel like movie about early part of the French Revolution, shown from the eyes of individual people, citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course the king Louis XVI, showing their own small problems.

The rise and fall of a grass-roots rural politician who eventually becomes mired in the sort of political corruption he vehemently railed against on his way to the governor's mansion.

A talented boxer's young career hits difficult terrain when an unethical promoter takes interest in him.

An unethical lawyer who wants to help his older brother becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.

In this Americanization of the 1931 German thriller, both the police and the criminal underworld stalk a mysterious serial killer who preys on little girls.